Hey, it's Bob Pickett. We are on our way to the legendary Broken Spoke. Come on, let's get out the truck and head inside.
And damn you're proud of it.
Come on, it's going side, getting ready for another Tale from the Broken Spoke mony. And I had such a great time visit with Bob Livingsteen. Let's get back to part two of our conversation. And we're also going to find out how the name the Lost Gun So Bad came about more with the conversation Bob Livingston on Tails from the Broken.
Spoke, you know, and then you just talk about you know, Stephen Fromholt, one of the greatest songwriters ever, you know, and just all y'all passing songs back and forth and inspiring each other, and you know, and and B. W.
Stevenson was right right of course, right man.
And then you just became a bass player because the gig didn't have a bass player. And then that's what you wound up doing.
It was like base with me.
I just remember that I was so my record deal fell through. They'd given me money. You know, I had the good girlfriend, right, I'm living up in the mount till you don't thing is rolling, you know, and and then it's off.
And I just remember, I had no Plan B. That's the name.
That's one of the working tiles for my book. It's on Texas Tech Press, Fixing come Out. And uh, there was no Plan B. And there wasn't all of a sudden that what you said, those gifts, those synergistic happenings were just.
You know, because then you look back when you're writing the book and go, it's a straight line, but you're doing it, you know. But it's like, I remember one of those great stories that Texas pickers is when when Buddy Holly hired Whalen to play bass on that last tour. But Whalen never held held the base before Bud. He said, here's a bass, here's my two albums. We lead in three weeks weeks, you know, and so you know what
it's like. He's twenty, he'd never been outside of Texas before in the biggest star in the world, and so he just hunkers down and he does this and he's and after the second gig, Whaling told me and Brent Brent Wilson with Wagoneers waiting, came up to Buddy. It's all excited because Buddy, this is just the first four strings of the guitar. After two gigs, he said, Holly goes how you could have gone off in day without telling me that.
Okay, you're bringing up You're bringing up Buddy Holly and whaling the love of connection. You spent a lot of time in Lubock.
Well, I was when I was ten years old. My parents were in the church business. They were at a church in San Antonia, Laura Heights Methodists, and so I was living in barn until I was ten. Then we moved to Lobbock so they could get the job the first Methodist church in lobook and Uh, I made friends. I went to Lubbock High School. I found out that the beginning of her career, Miss Honey taught Buddy Holly senior English.
I got to sit in his desk. Wow.
And you know, I tell people, you know a lot of some of this is not true. I just want to say that, but he she did teach him, and it was just, you know, Buddy was on my mind because he was only you know, just a little bit gone, and then all of a sudden you learn who he is. It's like when one of your friends you should have pad, you know, you should hung out more and you learn more about him.
And uh so, yeah, it was. It was kind of a but you.
Know, you think about it, that era of love of Hi, whatever was going on, whatever they were inspiring y'all, somebody at that school, English teacher, music teacher, was inspiring kids to dream. Yeah, you had you come out of that era, you know, within five years, a buddy, you had Bob Montgomery come out of there, Buddy Holly came out of there, Jerry Allison came out of there, Davis mac Davis, Job Malden, Glenn Harden.
You know something about.
High school that was something about that. You know, what is it? Tom s love of Kai that made y'all dream about things that that people in rural areas don't really do. That's amazing.
And you know joe Ely and Butch and Jimmy, they they went to Monterey High School and they're a couple of years older than me. I didn't really know him that well because you know, two years is everything. And then but I did end up going to see Joey. He was Joey then. Yeah, and uh he was playing this place in Altura Towers. It was like apartment. They
had a club at the top. So I go see him and he's sitting on a on a showman amp with his that guitar with seashells glim you know, that funky Gibson, and that was plugged Barcus Berry plugged into the amp. And then he has a high hat and he's playing the high hat with his left foot and he's playing and it's like he's a one man band, and this is the coolest thing I'd ever seen. He was so nonchalant. He was just like he's not trying
to do any kind of show. He is just do a song after song and every once in a while say something off the wall. But I just thought this is he was like my first big influence, and you know, my brother was, but but this guy was like, oh wow, that's real. And so the next day I was down at the pawn shop. I got a pawn I got a high hat, and my brother loaned me his amp and I had this lectric guitar and I plugged it in and I became you know, for a.
While, it's so cool. But you know the thing about Elie is, you know, the music is so great. The songs are so great. But if you're ever you know, he got like the charisma of like ten movie stars. You know, it really is a commanding presence where you really, to this day you have to be in the room about it. I wanted to ask you something when I was doing, you know, because it's so you know, I grew up listening to y'all's records. Of course, then I got to see it be around y'all a little bit,
particularly like from Holts. He was always real good to me when I was coming up. He was the first like professional songwriter I ever met. I was twelve. I somehow wound up into Craig Hillis's house on Sharon Lane, and I walked in there and I saw Stephen Fromholtz. It was just like, you know, I couldn't like seeing Davy Crockett or something. I'd never seen a professional songwriter before.
When I was twelve, for some reason, I blurted out, I'm going to be a songwriter, you know, And he laughed so hard, not at me, but he just thought it was great. And he said, man, don't let anybody talk you out of it. It was just so great, like, oh, you know, not finished school, don't let anybody talk you out.
But for years after he would go, I'm so sorry I said that, but now tell me about it if you and you know, I got this all flying, so I'm sure it's bullshit, but I'd never I'd never known about this mountain music farm.
Yeah, what is that?
Well, so I pick up a hitchhiker. Murphy calls me, a we need to meet. I drive up to Rightwood, California. He's living in the it's in the foothills of the San Gabriels, but it's in the mountains right Wood, across the Highway four five or.
Whatever it is from.
Maybe it's ten from Lake Haarrawhead and Barstow and San Bernardino are down below in the desert. And you know, I was sitting in my cabin looking down at the desert and I'm you know, five feet snowed in for ten days and it was just a you know, fantastic time. And we started writing, you know, a song or two together. And Murphy, of course, anything that happens, he has a song about he finds a bird that with a broken wing and he picks it up and he and he takes it home and he feeds it and stuff.
Like that, and we're looking at it.
Like two days later, I come back and I hear this banjo playing and I look in this his little music room, and his back is to me. He's playing the banjo and this bird is on his shoulder and he's singing.
Wild bird, I have men did your.
Wings, and I'm wondering if my cold white hands can let go this hold on your fluttering heart. It's this beautiful, you know, and he he get right and the moment okay, So at that moment, I had gone down to the to the desert and met this guy named Calvin Black, and he was just he had a roadside attraction. I took you know, it's just dolls and weird. You know, he's a desert rat. And he wrote a song about him.
And took him down there and he started. And he went further down and went to Knotsbury Farm, which the is it was the not it was owned by Knotsberry's form, but it was the Calico's Ghost Town, and it was it had been a silver mining town.
And Murphy wrote.
This piece, this beautiful piece called Calico Silver, and he had written he got with Larry Cancelor they wrote this whole thing and they pitched it to somehow or another. They had a manager named Marty Muschatt and they pitched it to Kenny Rodgers in the first edition and they did it. It was a double album, uh, the first country rock opera, The Ballad of Calico.
Willie Matthews did the cover. It was just incredible.
But it was a total flop and it was just too you know. They were used to just jopped in to see what my condition was, and and uh, it was just too I don't know. It didn't ever go very well. And that's when Murphy started thinking of going. But in the meantime, this guy, Marty Michhadd had introduced us to Roger Miller and somehow talked him into maybe he would bankroll a publishing concern and it was going
to be called the Mountain Music Farm. And Guy Clark was there, Murphy and I was there, you know, and so just the.
Four y'all, Guy Murphy, you and Roger Miller.
Roger Miller but I don't know if he was going to be part, but we met him a few times and what a character that and uh, but so that's what that was. Wow, it was and it never We made some demos, some of which I might have somewhere, but for the most part and nothing ever came of it.
I remember reading in uh Kenny Rogers book or a book about him. He interviewed for it, and it was talking about Calico. They were coming off these enormous records and were they on was it? Were they on CBS? It was a capital anyway. Rogers said that they did a million pressings, they pressed a million records to meet demand. And Roger said in his record and they missed it by nine hundred thousand units.
Totally different styles when it comes to Murphy and Jerry Jeff. Totally different styles, right.
Yes, in a way, yes, Uh, you know, you have to deal with someone, you know, when you play with them, especially when you're on the road a long time, you have to deal so that it's hard to It was hard for me to in private and in public to not have a you know, to make them the same. It was kind of hard for me to do because I knew how Murphy kind of was, uh in private, and then we'd be on stage and I mean he was he was demanding. He'd say things like that a string is is is a little sharp, and I said,
I'm right in the middle of the song. You'd stop and say that I'm playing bass, And he says, uh, at a gig, at a gig on stage, and he says, you need to get that.
And to just pull it, just just pull that, pull it, pull it, pull it in, pull it in.
And in one case when he did that, he jerked the string right off the bass by mistake.
So you something else he could pull right.
This is gonzo, you know. And so Murphy was like that, Jerry Jeff Murphy, though when I think about it, it was do He never told me exactly what to play. He never told any of us. He relied on whatever we did. Herb Steiner's in the band with Murphy, you know,
Craig Hill. This is a guitar player, Gary Nuns playing the piano, Michael McGary and that same band went to Jerry Jeff, and Jerry Jeff just looked for us to, you know, help with arrangements and throw out things, and we would do anything that he wanted to do.
He might and egg yhim on.
Like there's some a few tracks where like in that first record or not that actually the third album, Collectibles that the track completely falls apart, and the song is called winging It Home to Texas, and the chorus says, winging it Home to Texas. Home on the morning, plane, winging it home to Texas, and I lost my bags again, and that Daliss Airport sucks.
That's the cours.
Were you were you in La that time that Jerry Jeff tried to take Rodney Crow's dog back to Texas?
Yeah, I heard that story.
You were there when it happened.
No, No, I wasn't.
I mean I was on that tour, yeah, and but I know I didn't see.
Rodney told us that story here about that totally unbelievable and stuff.
Yeah, because I just for the listener there and everything, like when you're in the studio man, one of the you're always just looking for a vibe, you know, you just want if you got great pickers. You're not worried about the sound or the sonics. It's just like, is there it does it feel right? He doesn't feel right? You know, And the fact that you just y'all just
did it and didn't hear any playbacks. Like when I record one of the quickest ways to just bring a session to a screeching halt and said, everybody stop what they're doing and go listen to the tape before. I do not believe in listening to playback and unless there's just something not right. But if it's just you can sit there and going, if you have somebody you can trust, producer, engineer or something, that was.
It, guys, and you can listen to it at the end of the yeah, and for the rest of your life. Well. The one thing I would wonder though, if he says, this was it and that's your record, see it, we don't need to do anymore.
I would want to hear it. But maybe at the end of the evening.
Yeah, well, yeah, that's what I mean.
End of the day, and you just go. But you just go because otherwise you when you're listening to a playback, Actually, when you're listening to a record, you can't not just not focus on yourself. What did you do? Did you hit a clam? Is there something there? And it takes a while before you can just listen to a record collectively. But also something kind of magical happens very quickly you forget.
Yeah, initially I just thought, you know, wonder if you didn't you didn't listen to a playback, and you just go to the next song, and you do that a couple of times, whatever you need, and then go to the next song. You don't ever listen, kind of like Jerry Jeff did. We were forced into doing that. But it breaks it up, not just it's not so static we're gonna bore our hearts into this one song, analyze it,
listen to it, but rather just go on. And you know, both those guys allowed, especially Jerry Jeff allowed clams, I mean clams men.
You know, I like it, right, you know, well it's like, well, we you know, think of how many incredible Ray Charles and Beatles records would have been ruined by people fixing the mistakes because they're not mistakes. They're they're they're a little glimpses of humanity. Like if there's a clam that ruins a take, but if there's just something that gives it character or nobody really knows. And I just think, live it the fuck alone.
The Beatles with this new documentary that came out there the great you know, mind blowing just how they did it and they're playing live and they record let it Be and all those songs get.
Back right right, and they're asking you, so what about this? And no that's not a good lyric. He goes, what that's let it be right? But it's so wild because they just it's the process and you can get I mean, you know in the studio, you can get precious in a hurry and ruin a record. And my lord, did y'all do the exact opposite with those records and just and and just allowing the collective of the whole song now that somebody's individual parts. It's uh, I think what
what a music major would call clams? I just called magic especically on Beaver to Linguy, you.
Know, yes, especially how'd you guys come up with a name Los Gonzo band?
Well, so for that first album, which was Elle Freeway on it, we had that album out and so we were playing a few gigs. We were still kind of with Murphy, but we were playing some Jerry Jeff gigs and I would always introduce the band Theadies and Gentlemen's Jerry Jeff Walker and the Unborn Calves or one one thing that stuck the Rodeo do O d riff Raff.
And it was always a different name every night and I was reading Hunter Thompson, uh so, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and it was Gonzo this and Gonzo that had Gonzo states of band.
I was reading it to the guys.
We were in Gary Nunn had a black checker cab whatever it was, checker cab sprayed black. He brought it down from New York and that was our band vehicle. Had the big you know seat in the back. We could put our equipment there. In the trunk it held a lot.
Yeah, the trunk's enormous. It's a trillian to you said, as a band.
Yeah, vehicle, And here we are bumping around and I'm reading Fear and Loathing and I said, guys, tonight will be the Gonzo band.
How about the Lost Gonzo Band? And they're going whatever.
But when we when I introduced it that night, it's Castle Creek Jerry, Jeff Walker and Lost Gonzo Band. Jerry turned to.
Me and said, I like that.
Wow, So that became an and we had already cut, so that becomes the name. But we had already recorded viavature Lingua, but it was being processed and it hadn't the cover had not been finalized, and so he said, put that lost Gonzo band Jerry Jeff Walker in the Lost gon you were just written yeah wow, And so.
He put that there.
Great story.
Great story.
Next week, we're going to talk to Bob about the making of the album Viva Terror Linguo, which is celebrating his fiftieth anniversary this year. That's next week as we continue our conversation with Bob Livingston on Tales from the Broken Spoke.
Tales from the Broken Spoke is recorded live at The Broken Spoke in Austin, Texas, hosted by Country Radio Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Pickett and Monty Warden, recorded mixed down and produced by Mike Rivera